“You don’t know where he called from, that Monday?”
“No, he didn’t say. And of course there’s no way to tell; it came through the switchboard, and nowadays with long-distance dialing they wouldn’t know either.”
“He said he’d call back Wednesday to see if the deposit had cleared. Did you by any chance offer to call him?”
“Yes, I did. But he said not to bother; he’d call.”
“And what time did he?”
“Around ten thirty Wednesday morning. I told him clearance had just come through, so he said he would be in in about ten minutes.”
“Did he specify any denominations for the money?” Romstead asked.
“Yes. In fifties and hundreds. I gave instructions to have it counted out and ready for him in the vault. As you’ll see, from my desk here I can see the whole lobby, from the vault on out to the front doors, and even the sidewalk outside, through the windows. I told Mr. Wilkins he would be here in a few minutes, so he was on the lookout, too. I think it was just ten forty exactly when your father came in.”
“Was there anybody behind him?” Romstead asked.
“No. Not immediately behind him. By the time he’d walked over to my desk there was another man came in, but I knew him. He owns a restaurant down the street and has been a bank customer for years. The captain came on over to the desk here. He was carrying a small bag—”
“Do you remember what kind it was?” Romstead interrupted. “And what color?”
“Gray. It was just the common type of airplane luggage you can buy anywhere, even in drugstores. I asked him to sit down, but he refused; he seemed to be impatient to get on with the transaction. I tried again to tell him how dangerous it was, carrying that much money around the streets, but he waved me off rather abruptly. So I told him if he’d write out the check, I’d go back to the vault and get the money for him, but he said he’d go with me. Mr. Wilkins came over, and the three of us walked back. The captain took out his checkbook and stopped at one of the stands out there to write the check and sign it. We went on to the railing there outside the vault, and I asked to have the money brought out. It was banded, of course, and the captain accepted our count as we put it in the bag. He thanked me, and Mr. Wilkins and I walked to the front door with him.”
“And nobody followed him out?”
“No. We were particularly on the lookout for that, but it was a minute or two before anybody else went out, and again it was a customer I knew. I still didn’t like the transaction, so I stepped out on the sidewalk myself just to be sure there was nobody waiting for him outside. He went up to the corner, waited for the light, and crossed Montgomery. He was still alone, nobody following him.”
Romstead glumly shook his head. “Well, that seems to be it.”
“Yes, there’s not a chance in the world he was being threatened or coerced in any way. All the time he was here at my desk he could have told me without being overheard. And back there by the vault Mr. Wilkins and I were both alone with him. Also, when he crossed Montgomery, he passed right in front of a police car, stopped for the light.”
But, damn it, Romstead thought, it had to be. There was no other answer. “How many people were in the lobby altogether?”
“Several came in and went out during the whole period, but I don’t think there were ever more than eight at one time.”
“Was there anybody who was strange to you? Who wasn’t a customer and you couldn’t remember seeing before?”
“Yes. There were two.” The answer was unhesitating and precise. “One was a young woman with blond hair, wearing dark glasses. I think she was buying travelers’ checks. The other was a hippie type with a big bushy beard, a headband, and hair down to his shoulders. He was wearing one of those poncho things and had a guitar slung over his shoulder.”
“What was he doing? He doesn’t sound much like a regular bank customer.”
“He was counting his change. I guess he’d been panhandling.” Distaste was evident in Richter’s tone. “He came in just a few minutes before the captain and was at that middle stand there with a double handful of nickels, dimes, and quarters spread out on it, counting them.”
“He didn’t have one hand under the poncho, any TV routine like that?”
“Oh, no. Anyway, he was still here after the captain went out. He was at one of the tellers’ windows. Getting currency for all that silver, I suppose.”
“I just don’t get it,” Romstead said. “There’s only one thing that strikes me as a little odd. You asked him to sit down here and write the check, but he refused. Then he stopped at one of the stands and wrote it. Didn’t he have a pen?”
“Oh, I offered him one.”
“Did it strike you as strange?”
“No-o. Not really. It was my impression, I think, that he didn’t want me to go after the money—that is, it’d be quicker if he went too.”
“Well, when he stopped to write it on the way back to the vault, was it the stand where the hippie was?”
“No. It was the one at the rear.”
“Then the hippie couldn’t have seen the amount?”
“No, not unless he had exceptional eyesight—” Richter stopped, his eyes thoughtful. “Yes, he might have. As I recall now, he finished his counting and had gathered up his silver while your father was writing out the check, and he went past on the other side of the stand, going to one of the tellers’ windows. But I don’t think that’s significant; he could just as easily have seen, or guessed, what the three of us were doing back there by the vault with the bag, if he had robbery in mind. Anyway, as I said, he was still in the bank after your father left.”
Romstead walked back to the apartment, feeling baffled and frustrated. How could he be right and wrong at the same time?
6
“If the first supposition is right, then the second one has to be too,” he told Mayo. “Richter missed it, and now I’ve missed it; but it still has to be there.”
“Not necessarily,” she replied. She was wearing the housecoat and a pair of mules, but she’d combed her hair and put on lipstick. She was perched crosswise in a big armchair in the living room, sipping coffee. “You’re projecting your hypothesis from an opinion, not a known fact, when you say it couldn’t have been kidnap. It could have been a girlfriend.”
“A quarter million dollars?”
“Men as tough and as promiscuous as your father have turned out to be vulnerable, the same as anybody else, thousands of times. In which case he’d have come in alone to get the money. It wouldn’t have been voluntary, by any stretch of the imagination, but they wouldn’t have to be there.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You’re missing the key to the whole thing. They wouldn’t have had to be there to force him to sell the stock either. You ever hear of kidnappers coming in to discuss the thing in person? The threat comes by note or telephone. We couldn’t care less how you raise the money, Jack; just raise it.”
“But you don’t know they were there. Opinion again.”
“Yes, they were there. He wasn’t alone when he was talking to Winegaard; that’s implicit in the whole conversation. There are two phones in that house, one in the master bedroom and a wall-mounted extension in the kitchen, and one of the bastards was listening in while the others applied the pressure.
“Look—in kidnap or blackmail, a specific sum is demanded, and you raise it to suit yourself within the time limit. That being the case, he would have sold selectively, or at least he’d have let Winegaard express an opinion. But he wasn’t trying to raise a specific sum; he was selling a list of stocks with a gun against his head, knowing Winegaard was going to protest in a minute and he had to shut him up before he could mention some stocks that weren’t on the list.”